A Journey to the World
by Schermionie
Summary: Draco and Ginny meet by chance at a crowded Muggle train station, a meeting that sets several things in motion for both of them. Twoshot.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Harry Potter is not mine, not by any means, and neither is the film _Kontroll_, which inspired certain aspects of this fic. I'd also like to cover my back by saying that I know very little about anything to do with Wales, trains, or anything much, so I've been purposely vague in places. I could have done more research than I did do, but I just wanted to write.

Summary: Draco and Ginny meet by chance at a crowded Muggle train station, a meeting that sets several things in motion for both of them. Twoshot.

Thanks to: **tat1312**, for her encouragement.

Notes: Lying in my bed one night, I was wondering how I could go about writing a Draco/Ginny fic, and I suddenly got a very vivid image in my mind of Draco dressed as a Muggle, carrying some kind of black bag in his hand and entering a train. I then proceeded to forget everything else and just pursue how I could make that into a story, and this is what I came up with.

When I look back on journeys I've taken throughout my life, I know that the only two things that make a journey memorable to me are how it goes wrong and the people I meet on them. If a journey is quiet and uneventful, I'm not likely to remember it years and years later, and being able to come in and out of someone else's life for a while is, for me, one of the few pleasures of travelling.

I hope that you enjoy this fic. Please let me know your thoughts - even if you only give me a few words, I value my readers' feedback.

* * *

Ginny steadily works her way through the swarming crowd, head held high and elbows at the ready as she shimmies her way expertly through the ranks of the people inconveniently in front of her. If there's one thing Ginny can't stand, it's people who push in; but if someone _dares_ to push in in front of _her_, she will, inevitably, get past them again, because Ginny is a born queue jumper. Due to her distaste for queue jumpers, she doesn't usually _use_ her skills without provocation, but if the situation is dire enough...

_And believe me,_ she almost says to one woman who loudly complains about her as she passes, _the situation's dire_. It's been a total of four months since she last saw Harry, and a delay when she's _this_ close to seeing him again isn't something she'll easily accept.

_Four months_. If there's one thing she hates most about spending much of the year in Wales, and having a boyfriend who is one of the most overworked and hyped-up Aurors of their time living in _England_, it's that she and Harry rarely get to see each other. The major Quidditch leagues deserve their title of major, and though Ginny is still only on the reserve squad, she's sure to be promoted soon. Every moment for her is about practice; and every moment for Harry is about perfect. He can't mess up, not with lives on the line, and that involves a crapload of work and not very much play at all.

The first year was the hardest, Ginny reflects as she gets stuck behind a stationary wall of enormous Welshmen. She's always loved playing Quidditch, and yet she couldn't have missed Harry more. They'd had a year long break from each other after the war, when they were focusing on rebuilding things and just learning how to live again, but afterwards, when they'd allowed themselves to reopen their hearts... suddenly, they'd had absolutely no impediments to their relationship. It had been bliss.

Then, work had taken over, and time had done its business. They've been together for five years now, and she finally became a reserve for the Holyhead Harpies two years ago. Now that she has this job that's so far away from home, it's like she has her own life, a life that Harry can't share; at the start, she'd felt guilty for enjoying it, but at that time she'd also been finding herself feeling jealous of Harry's work, the way it had absorbed him so completely, the way he'd spent more time on it than he'd done on her - and _that_, above all else, had convinced her that she'd needed some drastic changes in her life. She'd needed her independence back.

Although a long distance relationship hasn't ever been what they've wanted, somewhere in her two years as a Quidditch star in Wales she'd stopped trying not to settle down here and started relaxing; far from longing for the constraints of her life back in England, she's found herself _revelling_ in her freedom.

The problem with disconnecting yourself from something is that, when the time comes, it can be hard to connect again.

She needs to get back.

There are things she has to figure out.

* * *

After much frantic worming around, Ginny manages to slither her way past the Welshmen, and she finds herself close enough to the front of the annoyed crowd to see what's going on:

On the front of the window for the office of the Welsh International Portkey Distribution Bureau, there's a sign that says: _Closed for three weeks due to an emergency. If your journey is urgent and it is possible for you, please apparate responsibly or use Muggle means of transportation. If not, shut up and wait._

The rather curt and unhelpful message sends Ginny's head spinning. What kind of emergency could cause a three weeks' closure? Her journey _is_ urgent. She only has a month of leave, and then she has to be back for tryouts for the _real_ team. Her return to England can't be delayed.

And yet, this puts her in a very difficult situation. Muggle money isn't hard to attain, but Ginny's not so sure about the transport. She hasn't got a car, and a taxi's just too much; fares have become ridiculously high in recent years, if she recalls correctly - Harry recently had to go undercover as a Muggle taxi driver, and apparently, he'd made a mint. On the other hand, Ginny's heard that the trains are a lot cheaper than they used to be. There's a train station just nearby, too... but it's been some time since she's used a train, and it'll be a long journey, longer than she's ever had. Hours? Days? _How long?_

Apparition is always an option, but it's difficult over long distances even if you _do_ cut down your journey by making it in leaps, and even the thought makes her stomach churn a little; she's apparated more than enough times to get here already. She remembers the apparition lessons with the Carrows that she'd had in her sixth year with startling detail, but they're details she will never repeat to anyone. These things are best left forgotten. Ginny, a strong girl, has managed to push away many of her memories of the war, but some things still linger; namely, a dread of apparition that she can only do her best to ignore. Most things that she learnt that year are painful in some way.

Frowning, she pushes her way closer to the front, but it doesn't tell her anything she couldn't already have guessed at. The sign is all the information given, and there's no one around to complain to (or, as Ginny had hoped, convince to make an exception for her) - something that the people around her seem to have noticed, too, if their conversations are anything to go by. Ah, Britain, Ginny thinks with a distracted sigh. Whether you're in Wales or England, the art of complaining is heartily and frequently practised. With great gusto. Endlessly.

Even so, people are already moving away. Ginny wonders what they'll all look like, all these people dressed in robes getting on the trains at once, staring at ticket barriers and machines as though they've never seen them before, and she feels the urge to laugh; but then she sees that the majority of people are taking other options, and, feeling more than a little worried, she starts out in the direction of the bank where she can change up some galleons, hoping that the enormous Welshmen, who are walking in front of her, are choosing the same option she is - and, if so, that they know a lot more than she does about trains.

_Calm down, Ginny_, she tells herself. _You can do anything if you've got enough nerve, remember?

* * *

_

The enormous Welshmen, it turns out, do indeed know more than her about trains. They seem so at home among them that she'd almost have thought they were Muggles; that is, if they hadn't kindly offered to help her with magically concealing her robes from Muggle eyes when they found out they would all be going the same way, as "You won't find anybody better at that than Rhys here" (Rhys, at around 6 ft 6, being the biggest one of the three of them).

Much to her relief, they don't much like apparition either, and as they chat during the walk to the station, she finds herself quickly warming to them. Ginny always likes meeting new people, and they're friendly, teasing her about her lack of knowledge about Muggles and Wales but accepting it when she, in turn, teases them about their lack of knowledge about the Quidditch leagues, as they're curiously ignorant about them.

By the time they've bought their own tickets and told her which one to get herself (all the names of tickets just bemuse her - is this off peak or on peak time, and whatever that means, what difference _does_ it make?), and Ginny has embarrassed herself by being confused when some of the announcements were in Welsh and others weren't, she knows that their names are Rhys, Daffyd and Owen, that they were all born in Cardiff, that Owen and Daffyd are cousins, and that they make frequent journeys to London via the trains.

"But why do you use the trains more than Portkeys?" she asks them quietly as they settle down in some seats in the corner of a random carriage, where it doesn't smell as bad; doubtfully, she adds, "Do you prefer them?"

Owen laughs - a loud, hearty sound that briefly attracts attention from the other passengers. "Well, it's not difficult to see what's more reliable," he explains. "It's International apparently, but the Welsh Portkey Distribution Bureau has a lot of these 'emergencies'. After a while, we realised it wasn't worth bothering!"

Ginny rather doubts that anything could be less reliable than the British rail system, but she figures that there's no point arguing about it, especially when her experiences with it are much fewer than theirs. Instead, she changes the subject:

"What brings you to London so often, then?"

They go on to tell her that they're ballet dancers and often do shows all over both wizarding and Muggle Europe. Ginny almost laughs in their faces - that's the _last_ thing she'd have thought they would say, and at first, she doesn't believe them one bit. But they seem serious, and then she remembers the Hogwarts tapestry of Barnabus the Barmy, the man who'd attempted to teach trolls the ballet - and, smiling, she thinks, _Well, stranger things have happened_.

Strange things _often_ happen.

* * *

Despite the pleasant company, Ginny sleeps through most of the journey. The journey from all the way in Holyhead - which is an island off the Welsh coast, not a part of the mainland - to London is the longest and one of the hardest of her lifetime, not least because a large part of it was done the Muggle way, and she feels heavily drained by it.

When awake, she'd done anything she could to distract herself from the thoughts of those _things she had to figure out_, but they'd played on her mind nonetheless, pick-pick-picking away. Being so far away from Harry's been skewering her mind, surely? But Ginny has nearly always known what she wants in life: she's strong in her convictions, and she knows when something's wrong with the way things are. And maybe, just maybe, she's right. Their relationship no longer feels like what she wants, so maybe, just maybe, it isn't.

Ginny wants to be held at night. She wants to wake up to someone's smile, to someone else making breakfast for her, to someone else laughing at her bedhair; she wants to wake up in the arms of someone who loves her. She wants face-to-face interaction, to etch his expressions into her mind but turn around and see them again anyway. She wants to know someone inside out, talking to them, knowing them every day, from more than just ink on parchment. She doesn't want to have to ration time anymore - she wants someone who makes her feel as though they've got all the time in the world.

Instead she sleeps on a bumpy train, face against the cold window, counting down the hours until she sees the man she's chosen to be with for the first time in four months. They'll talk, of course, once they get past the awkwardness of seeing each other again after all of this time. And then he will hold her. But in the back of her mind, she'll still be counting hours.

Is this really what she wants? Even with Harry, the man she loves?

Ginny sleeps for most of the journey, but her problems don't.

* * *

Armed with a new ticket and the parting instructions from Owen about where she has to go next, Ginny steels herself for the next challenge of her life: navigating the London Underground alone.

It's a miserable and lonely sort of place, she thinks as she strides off towards platform ten, already missing the Welshmen's jokes and laughter by her side. No one here smiles, just focusing on getting where they want to get to, it's rather grimy, and, hulked up in the corners, she's already noticed several homeless people. She wonders whether she should just apparate at this point, but she's too close to Muggles and, more than that and more, even, than her hatred of it, she's too tired. Exhaustion is weighing down her limbs and mind, and it's hard enough for her to keep walking, let alone apparate. At least on the tube, there might be the _slightest_ possibility of a seat...

Inevitably, focusing so intently on that possible seat causes her to lose focus on where she's walking, and she bumps into someone. Hard.

The impact sends her and her heavy bag flying and she falls painfully onto the ground. The man she's bumped into drops the carrier bag he was carrying and stumbles back a few paces, but is otherwise fine; Ginny, scrabbling around to pick up her bags before people tread on them, waits for him to ask her if she's okay and offer his hand like a gentleman would, but no such things happen.

When she looks up, she sees that he has already started to walk away, and she stands up hurriedly, forgetting entirely that she's exhausted, that her train is set to arrive in five minutes and that he's walking _away_ from platform ten. It had been her fault, true, but really!

Inexplicably incensed, she pushes her way past annoyed people now, following the flashes of his distinctive blond hair through the crowd, soon having to up her pace in order to not fall completely behind. He's a lot taller than she is and it would have been hard to keep up had he been walking at a faster pace than usual, but this is quite ridiculous - it's almost as though he's running away from her.

Well, two can play _that_ game.

* * *

It's the second time she's collided with this man in as many minutes, but this time, the impact isn't nearly as dramatic. He doesn't even stumble, just stops where he is, and Ginny simply finds herself rearing back, cheeks flaming, suddenly wondering what on earth she can say to explain her strange behaviour. "I-I'm sorry," she says automatically, heart pounding.

For a moment he doesn't turn around to face her, but then he squares his shoulders and whirls around, and Ginny Weasley and Draco Malfoy come face to face for the first time in three years.


	2. Chapter 2

My thanks go to MysteriousFlower and xakemii for reviewing and alerting, and tat1312, RavenEcho, NRC and Indigo Pearl for reviewing. As for the two naughty people who alerted but didn't review (you know who you are!), I hope to hear your comments about this chapter. My face was like this when I saw you hadn't reviewed: :(

A/N: So, here is the conclusion to _A Journey to the World_. I wonder whether it was what you were expecting? It's probably one of my stranger fics, I must say, but I'm content with the finished project - and it was a lot of fun to tell a story in two chapters.

I sincerely hope you like it, anyway.

* * *

They say important things happen in slow-motion, but if anything, this is _fast_-motion.

One moment he's trudging along, alone and anonymous; the next moment, he's bumped into by a person from the past and he's no longer anonymous, no longer trudging along.

No - _now_, he's running for his life.

* * *

_Draco is running. Someone is gripping his arm so tightly, he's almost crying for the pain; but behind him is pursuit, around him is death, and ahead - ahead he doesn't want to think about - so _he just keeps running_._

_Draco is running. Someone is saving him, and though a part of him thinks he deserves to be down there among the flames, he carries on forward. Behind him is fire, around him is fire, and ahead - ahead he doesn't want to think about - so_ he just keeps running_._

_Draco is running. Someone has offered him a life-line, but others don't think he's so deserving. Behind him is anger, around him is hatred, and ahead - ahead is a life he doesn't even want. But still, he grabs the line and keeps on running forwards. _

_And then, suddenly, he's ahead of them all, and Draco - Draco stops running. _

_Because ahead, there is nothing._

_(And so he starts running again, running into nothing because it's easier than stopping and looking at it.)

* * *

_

He's always been a good runner, but she's determined to catch him, and he thinks she might at this rate. The more you run, the more determined you make the people chasing after you, after all.

Ginny Weasley hasn't changed much since they last saw one another - it was only briefly, all those years ago, but he would recognise her bright red hair, Weasley features and confident walk anywhere; _they've_ not changed. If he'd ever thought of her, it would have been to suppose she'd have carried some Potter spawn by now, so he's almost surprised to see her as willowy as ever. But surprise doesn't really have time to kick in - before he knows it, he's left her on the floor and rushed away, hoping she didn't have enough time to recognise him. He wonders why he still bothers with hope when it lets him down so often.

She finally catches him - the hand on his shoulder and the way her body pushes against his as she comes to an abrupt halt sends a shock through him, and he stops dead, knowing that for now, he has no choice _but_ to stop.

"I'm sorry," she says, and he thinks _No, you're not_, and turns around to face her.

And Draco Malfoy and Ginny Weasley come face to face for the first time in three years.

* * *

When Ginny gets over the shock of finding out just _why_ this man was running away from her - and that takes awhile: she sees that pale, pointed face and it's like a hurricane's just hit her - she finds the old curiosity resurfacing. Her mind goes into overdrive as she drinks his appearance in: he's wearing _scruffy Muggle clothing_, but his hair is as neat as ever, if a little greasy; he's a lot thinner than she remembers, and there are faint dark rings under his eyes; a typical sneer marrs his face, but there's not nearly as much heart in it as there was at school.

This is definitely Draco Malfoy, but it's almost _not_.

At the same time, he's drinking _her_ in, but she can't read what he's thinking at all. "Malfoy," she mutters, half a greeting and half a confirmation.

"Weasley," he says, another pale imitation of the usual conventions.

And then they both fall silent, standing tight-lipped in a sea of tourists' loud voices and the hustle and bustle of London, each waiting for the other to say something.

Though she doesn't want to be the first to speak, Ginny decides that _any_ conversation is better than this awkward silence, and she scrabbles around for words. "So," she says after a long moment in which they just stare at each other, "how have you been?"

Unfortunately, her artificial attempt at conversation just makes things _more_ awkward, and though this sudden meeting has woken her up, it's also sent her mind spiralling with questions. Ginny doesn't want to let him intimidate her, but the distrustful look in his eyes won't quite let her ask him what she _really_ wants to - she wasn't prepared to ever see him again, even in the wizarding world, and this is far too tense to not cow her a little.

Above their strained silence there's an announcement about her train - it's scheduled to arrive in one minute. "Shit!" she says loudly, forgetting where she is and who she's with completely. "That's my train -"

But she can't just leave this _here_.

Almost as though her words have broken some kind of spell, Malfoy opens his mouth to speak. "You should hurry," he says blandly. "We wouldn't want you to miss your train, would we?"

And nodding an almost mocking farewell, he turns to leave.

"...No, _we_ wouldn't," agrees Ginny, and then it's the second time she's grabbed his shoulder in as many minutes. This time, he retreats as if burned - horrified. The reaction bothers her, but she's not about to let him see that; grabbing his arm this time, she pulls him forcibly towards platform ten.

Were she to look back, she would see him flinch, as though suddenly remembering something unpleasant.

But she doesn't, because she's too busy running again.

* * *

As soon as they reach the platform, Malfoy pulls his arm out of her grasp. Much to her relief, her train hasn't arrived yet, but it won't be long before it does.

"There," he all but spits, and there's more than distrust in his eyes now, "you got here in time. _Well done_."

Ginny decides that this is when she needs to be assertive and direct. "Come with me," she orders, and anyone who knew Molly Weasley would, at this point, have said that Ginny was definitely her mother's daughter. "We should talk."

Malfoy just glares, though. "_No_."

"_Yes_," replies Ginny.

"_No_," snaps Malfoy.

"_Yes_!" asserts Ginny.

"_NO_!" asserts Malfoy.

"...You're behaving like a child," Ginny sniffs.

"Then we appear to be at an impasse, because so are you."

Neither of them back down as the train arrives. "...Look, Weasley," says Malfoy eventually, crossing his arms, "I'm going a different way to you. I've got things to _do_. And I can assure you, we've got absolutely nothing to talk about."

"_Nothing_?" asks Ginny scathingly. "What, not even 'Where the hell have you been for the last three years?' That's a conversation topic if ever there was one."

"But _it's none of your business_."

"Okay," concedes Ginny slowly, "but how about 'Where are you going now?' That's a simple enough question. I'm going to -"

"Oh, shut up," Draco snarls. "I don't care."

"Fine," says Ginny after a moment of frantic thought about how best to _convince_ him to care. "Go if you like. Never hear from me again. Go back to your life, which I'm sure is absolutely" - here she pauses to look his rather rough appearance up and down - "wonderful."

For the first time since they bumped into each other, he falters; it seems she's struck a nerve.

And suddenly, it's like the fight's gone out of him. "Fine," he mutters, and sweeps past her onto the train.

She knows the battle isn't over yet, but as she goes in after him, she also knows that round #1's gone to Ginny.

* * *

_The first time he sees this place, he knows it's where he'll end up. The dankness, the cold and the claustrophobic platforms and dark tunnels are fitting - too fitting to ignore._

_But before he knows it, he's stuck again, stuck looking into nothingness. For most people, the trains are going somewhere; but for him, they're just an endless circle that cages him in. He needs someone to lead him back out again, but who?_

_...Or... maybe he doesn't need to be _led_._

_Maybe he needs to be _pushed_.

* * *

_

Blessedly, the train isn't very full and they manage to find seats. It's more than a little uncomfortable for them to sit next to each other, but it's the best they can do - and it will be easier to talk quietly this way, which Draco supposes is why she seems so unconcerned about it.

Talking. With Ginny Weasley. Who is sure to ask about things that are none of her business, and - worse - not let go until she gets the answers she wants. Draco almost sighs, but he's not going to give her that. Let _her_ be the first one to make any kind of outward show of emotion. This was her idea, and if she wants answers, he's not going to give her an easy time.

He'd thought this life would ensure peace for him; he should have known his past wouldn't magically disappear, no matter how much he wished it would.

Silence. That's supposed to be peaceful, isn't it?

But this one's just tense.

* * *

He's turned away so she can't see his face, even in the glass of the window opposite, and Ginny's getting a little unnerved by it. How can she proceed? How can she get him to talk?

They come to their first stop, and in the ensuing bustle, Ginny decides that action's what's required. Going with her instincts, she reaches over and touches his left forearm...

Just as she'd thought he would, he whirls around to look at her, a strained grimace gripping his face. "Get off me," he hisses, and she obliges, a little guiltily; but even so, he doesn't look away again: success.

"You look different," she tells him levelly, as though nothing has just happened.

He looks her up and down stiffly. "_You_ don't."

She's not sure whether she should be insulted or not - but it's _Malfoy_, she reminds herself. If it _was_ an insult, it's only another to add to the collection.

"You know your disappearance caused quite the scandal, don't you?"

And it had. Everyone had thought Narcissa and Draco were getting on comfortably after the war ended (a little _too_ comfortably, many said), even with Lucius in Azkaban; but three years ago, Draco had just upped and left. Narcissa didn't speak about it much, as far as Ginny knew, but she _had_ said that she'd had no idea where he had gone, or why.

Malfoy's expression gives nothing away - it's his silence that tells her something. He'd had every idea that people would wonder where he was, but he'd left anyway. Judging from the Muggle clothing, he's maybe even been living as a Muggle, but Ginny finds that so very hard to imagine. A _Malfoy_? Living without magic? It just doesn't match up to anything she's ever known.

"...Especially after Harry made all of that effort to exonerate you, too. He couldn't help your father, but he owed it to your mother to save _you_. When you left, she lost _everythin_-"

"_Shut up_, Weasley!" Malfoy grinds out, and Ginny instantly knows she's gone too far. "Stop talking about things you don't understand."

Ginny looks down, a little ashamed, but she doesn't apologise because she knows he won't accept her pity. Instead she thinks back to that time, straight after the war when everyone was blaming everyone else, and then she says, "Maybe I'd understand if you told me why you left."

They reach another stop and Malfoy runs a hand through his pale hair as people walk past them. Once things have settled down again, he looks up, and their eyes, reflected in the window opposite, meet. There's an intense moment in which neither of them look away, blue meeting brown, and then he breaks their gaze and opens his mouth to speak.

"How have you been, Weasley?" he asks her casually, voice back to its usually smooth tones. The simple pleasantry disrupts the _expectant_ mood completely. "Still with Potter?"

With a start, Ginny realises that despite saying his name just now, throughout this whole thing with Malfoy she's not thought about Harry _once_. Their relationship has been occupying her every waking thought recently; in some ways, she wishes he hadn't reminded her of it, because suddenly her worries have come flooding back, and this doesn't seem so important anymore. She wants to know what Malfoy's been up to, but is it anything to do with her? Really? Her present worries are more important than this conversation, and she shouldn't have forgotten them, not when she's so close to confronting them.

"It's -" Ginny starts to say.

"- complicated," Malfoy finishes for her.

Their eyes meet in the window again.

* * *

Draco's surprised by Weasley's reaction to his question. When they started going out, Weasley and Potter had been in the newspapers often - mostly the gossip columns, which couldn't get enough of such _perfection_. It had all been rather sickening, but though there was no love lost between them, Draco had accepted that Potter deserved happiness far more than he did. That was just the way of things.

But rather than launching into a tedious monologue about how Potter had proposed and how they were going to have 2.4 children and a happily ever after, Weasley had gone quiet. Still. In the space of ten seconds, she'd gone from being defensive, manipulative and ruthlessly curious to being a fragile woman, distant - someone he could read like a book. It was... strange.

"- complicated," he says for her, because if anyone understands complexity, it's him.

This all reminds him of why he'd caved in and followed her into the train: he's curious. He's been out of the loop for so long, he wants to know what's been happening, even though it might pain him to hear it. The sole person he misses out of everyone he's ever known is his mother, and if Weasley knows _anything_ about her...

So he goes on the offensive, taking advantage of Weasley's sudden weakness to ask her the questions on his mind. As the train continues on, he asks, and she answers; he asks, and she answers; he asks, and she answers.

* * *

He's asking her a lot of things that, had he been a part of the wizarding world for the past three years, he would already know, which makes her theory that he's been living as a Muggle more likely, despite how odd that concept is. Although she's worrying about Harry now, Ginny's still trying to figure everything out - Malfoy's not answered _her_ questions yet, and she's too intrigued to stop wondering what the answers will be.

Malfoy asks a lot of questions about his mother, and this unexpected vulnerability makes Ginny wish that she had more to tell him - and _better_ news to tell him.

"You've got one more stop to go," he tells her, abruptly ending their awkward conversation about Narcissa's ailing health.

And time starts up again.

A minute? Two minutes? Five minutes? _How long?_

"I suppose I won't be seeing you again after this," she says levelly. He may be thirsty for information about the wizarding world, and he may care about his mother and miss her, but she's not got the impression he intends to return anytime soon. It's an oddly sad thought.

"...You said you wanted to understand," he says softly, looking at her now.

And suddenly, she doesn't care. "Don't worry, Malfoy. You can keep your secrets if you want to."

But he's not listening. "I didn't want the Dark Lord to win, Weasley. He brought my family to ruin; he disturbed me, and I hated him and the things he made me do. But I didn't fight for the world we're in now, either. I'm not a part of either world. And... I kept worrying about that. I wanted to fit in; I wanted to be respected and loved again. I wanted to feel at home... and one day I woke up, and I realised something: that fitting in was so important to me, I wasn't actually living anymore."

Ginny swallows down her sudden fear of taking this conversation any further. "And... are you now?"

But then the train pulls in at her stop, and it's time for her to leave and face her _own_ life.

She never hears the answer from his lips, but one last glimpse of him as she stands on the platform and the train pulls away tells her enough. As she's swallowed up by the swarming crowd, one last thought is haunting her: _I wanted to feel at home_, he'd said.

She pushes off back to her flat for the night and thinks about seeing Harry again tomorrow. Maybe Draco's words are all the answers she needs.

* * *

At the next station, Draco pushes off from his seat and steps out of the train, staring at the steps that lead upwards to the world.

He wonders whether it's time for him to start running again.

He wonders whether it's time for him to _really_ start living again.


End file.
